Trans-Asia interested in 40-MW wind plant

Trans-Asia Renewable Energy Corp., a subsidiary of Phinma Energy Corp., remains keen on developing the 40-megawatt Sibunag wind power project in Guimaras province, an executive said over the weekend.

Trans-Asia Renewable vice president Danilo Panes told reporters while the company had no timeline for the project construction, it was preparing the project for government’s decision on the third round of feed-in tariff for wind projects.

Panes said Trans-Asia was looking at the capacity of the wind turbines to be used in the Sibunag project.

“If you will use 2 MW each, that’s 20 towers. But if bigger, that’s around 16 towers only,” he said.

The planned Sibunag wind project will be located 15 kilometers from the existing 54-megawatt San Lorenzo wind project which consists of 27 wind turbines, each with 2 MW of generation capacity installed over a 14-square-kilometer area in San Lorenzo, Guimaras.

The project supplies power to the island of Panay via a new 2.8-kilometer submarine cable connection from Guimaras.

“We’re still looking at it because we need the new installation targets from DoE [Department of Energy], but we are preparing so that once it’s there, we can immediately go,” Panes said.

Panes said the company wanted to start construction of the project this year.

Trans-Asia president Francisco Viray earlier said the company was keen on pursuing the project but only if it was assured of a feed-in tariff, or the per kilowatt-hour rate incentive given to renewable energy resources.

“We will do Sibunag only if we got an FIT for San Lorenzo and an FIT for Sibunag prior to investment,” Viray said.

Trans-Asia’s San Lorenzo wind project was granted a P7.40-per-kilowatt-hour feed-in tariff rate under the second wave of wind installation targets.

The first and second wave of installation targets have a combined 400 megawatts and are already fully subscribed.

The National Renewable Energy Board applied with the Energy Department for an additional 500 MW of wind projects under the third round of installation targets.

Trans-Asia Renewable invested P6.5 billion in the project, including the upgrade of Guimaras’ grid connection and a P570-million world-class submarine cable connecting Guimaras and Panay.

Trans-Asia is an end-to-end energy company engaged in oil and gas exploration and development, power generation and electricity supply.